Obsession Falls Read Online Free Page B

the panther that you track. You see everything. You know everything. Everything fears you.
    She whimpered. No, Daddy. I’m afraid .
    No, you aren’t. You use caution.
    She nodded. Caution .
    She was hearing her father’s voice in her head.
    Yep. Another day and she’d be stark-staring crazy.
    It was twilight when she found the Cherokee, parked right where it had been, off the road and concealed in the trees.
    She ducked behind a tree trunk, then peeked at it.
    She wanted to run to the SUV, embrace its fenders, kiss its mirrors, open its doors, find her backpack and that wonderful, fabulous, tasty sandwich, the baggie of crushed granola.
    Her stomach growled, urging her onward.
    She resisted. She had to be wise.
    But it was getting darker by the second, too dark to scout thoroughly for signs of a visitor. So she picked up a pebble, leaped out from behind the tree, and threw it as far as she could, over the Cherokee’s roof to the trees on the other side, to make a noise and see if she could flush out any onlookers.
    Then she ducked back behind the tree.
    The pebble bounced through the tree branches and landed with a tiny thud.
    She waited.
    No movement. No reaction.
    Dash wasn’t here. He was not here.
    She could hear her sandwich calling her name …
    Don’t be foolish, Taylor. Another rock, bigger this time.
    She hoped, when she got some food into her, her father would stop talking to her, because this was spooky. But she sighed and did as he told her, picking up a bigger rock and flinging it haphazardly toward the brush at the front of the car.
    Trouble was, she didn’t have the oomph to get it that far, and she watched in horror as the heavy stone sailed through the air toward the hood. She couldn’t watch. She ducked behind the tree. She had the brief thought, That’s going to cost my insurance . She squinted her eyes shut and waited for the impact.
    The car exploded.

 
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    The blast wrapped around the tree and blew Taylor onto her face in the dirt. She covered her head. Flaming debris fell around her. Her ears were ringing; dimly she heard the roar of a beast behind her.
    No. Not a beast. Fire. A huge fire. She felt the heat and blistering stings as burning pine needles fell off the tree onto her bare skin.
    Get. Away. Forest fire. Get out of the trees!
    She crawled, then got up and ran. No zigging. No zagging. She wasn’t thinking about the possibility of gunmen.
    She had to escape from the fire.
    As she ran, she shook her head, combed her hands through her hair. She dislodged a flaming twig and more needles. She stepped on something that crunched. Her cell phone.
    She kept going. If someone was shooting, she didn’t know. She couldn’t hear. Oh, God, she couldn’t hear. Her skin was on fire. And she was running back into the mountains, seeking sanctuary where there was none.
    She never looked back.

 
     
    CHAPTER NINE
     
    On day four after the car explosion … or was it day four after Dash had shot at her?—Taylor found herself on the ridge overlooking her old house. Her old house that wasn’t there anymore.
    When her mother made her father sell his family’s land and the house on it, and divide the proceeds with her, it had been an act of unimaginable cruelty to Pete Summers. He had lived his whole life on the ranch, working the cattle, mending the fences, fixing the broken-down machinery, growing alfalfa. In one fell swoop, everything he knew, everything he lived for was gone, blotted from his life as if it had never been. He’d moved to Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, worked as a ranch hand, dwindled into a shadow of the father she had loved so much until at last, when she was seventeen, he’d died in a freak snowstorm.
    Her mother hadn’t told Taylor right away. Taylor had been graduating from high school; Mother said she hadn’t wanted to spoil the occasion with bad news. So Pete Summers had gone into his grave alone and unmourned.
    Taylor had never forgiven her mother